Division setup/detach/reattach

[doxsroxs]

I often find that I have to fight the current system when i comes to ships and the division they are attached to.

Since there is no way to control how your ships enter battle they sometimes get put in divisions that do not make sense since the ships involved differ to much.

Here is an example from my current battle:
CA + 2 BCs are in division, CA is the lead ship.

I cannot avoid this, I cannot even tell it to fall back to the back of the line to try and protect it by at least not going first into battle.
At the same time, I really need the firepower of my new BCs to help me win this battle.
Just so you know the disparity in power here, we are talking about an old, 8 000 ton CA leading two 20 000 ton BCs with state of the art heavy guns, triple the belt armor and over 4x the turret armor.

Personally Id qualify the CA as a CL.

Unsurprisingly on first contact with the enemy the CA takes a heavy beating. Not helped by being much weaker then the much newer BCs it is paired with.
At this point I can detach it since it has sustained heavy damage. However, one of my BCs has also taken a hit causing some flooding, its nothing major but I detach it as well to allow it to patch the flooding at 16 knot cruising speed instead of 25 knots. Had the flooding been heavier Id have lowered the speed even more, but I figured it was in good enough shape to continue fighting.

A little bit later during the battle I approach an enemy formation from two sides with the now separated BCs on each side (together with other ships).
However, just after getting in torpedo range while closing on the enemy formation they decide to reattach.
This causes the damaged BC to change speed and course trying to get in line behind the other. Not only is this dangerous for a ship still patching leaks, it also increases the risk it will get hit by torpedoes and messes up my attack.

I have already put forth the suggestion that players should be allowed to setup the squadron/division structure for his ships in a seazone as part of patrols etc. So Ill leave that for that thread.

Here I will focus on two small improvements during battles that I think would be highly beneficial:

• Always ask the player before reattaching ships, ships have most likely been detached for a reason and reattaching them without warning mid fight can be quite bad
• Allow players to detach any ships, no matter if they are damaged enough or not, there might be perfectly valid situations for any commander to detach a ship from a squadron, perhaps just to spread the scouting force a bit more
• If you feel super generous, allow players to move ships between squadrons and attach ships to squadrons as well, its well documented historically that squadron changes where performed ad hoc just prior to battle due to damage and other unforseen circumstances

[doxsroxs]

I am currently in another battle where my strongest BC division is engaged with the enemy.
One if my BCs suffer two heavy hits on its deck extended causing flooding.
At the moment the division is doing 26 knots, due to this the flooding increases and the floatation meter is around 20-25% with a flooding value of 126.

Despite this I cannot detach the BC since it says the ship is not sufficiently damaged to detach. Since floatation never seems to be improved Id say it is sustaining possibly debilitating damage every minute it continues in this state.

So my choice is now, reduce the speed of my strongest formation engaged with the enemy, possibly taking more damage if they turn around and close the distance, or cripple and possibly loose one of my strongest ships due to flooding.

Please look into the detach rules, removing restrictions should be an easy fix

[brygun]

Along with a specific "Return to Base" squadron order to prevent the occassional mid-battle "Im coming back" that persists.

[brygun]

Bump as issue persists into 1.14

Doing a large fleet battle with myself having ~9 B and the enemy ~11 B.

I am repeatedly having to re-detach my damaged 40%+ dreadnoughts and cruisers. At one point there were 3 retreating B so I put them in a daisy chain of B#1 being the target of B#2 to core who was the target to core for B#3. Yet the these B kept turning back into the fight.

Really need a dedicated squadron order for "return to base" separate from the existing "detach". The intention being that it would have them retreat without EVER turning back to rejoin. We would have to take off the "return to base" squadron order to say "core" or "support" should we choose that.

[corsair1]

A return to nearest friendly port order would be a nice addition

[cabalamat]

Dec 12, 2019 12:00:41 GMT -6 brygun said:

Along with a specific "Return to Base" squadron order to prevent the occassional mid-battle "Im coming back" that persists.

This could also be done on a per-ship basis.

[rimbecano]

The game could definitely use improvement in this regard. OTOH, I can see where some things that would be improvements at first glance could be abused: if you detach ships individually for any reason and give an "RTB" order that prevented reattachment, then, if the RTB order didn't put the ships permanently under AI control, then at captain difficulty, the player could detach an arbitrary ship, give an RTB order, then take manual control, just for the purpose of gaining manual control of that ship in combat. In theory, this could be done to each ship in the player's whole force, allowing feats of tactical coordination that would have been impossible in the period.

As for dispositions at the start of the battle, at a minimum, it would be really, really nice to be presented with your division list for the battle, and be able to refuse any ship you desire to refuse, at least for actions of an offensive nature (for at least some defensive scenarios, this could be abused if it applied: e.g. War breaks out with Japan, and a surprise attack is generated, whereupon the player elects to remove every single ship from his OOB). But when making a raid on coastal targets, the player shouldn't be forced to accept a legacy CA that makes 21 knots at the head of his 28 knot BC line.